I agree with his point about safety driving the industry recently, this could become a problem in the future. With games getting more expensive to make even more safety next gen is very likely, but people might get sick of the same concepts all over again at some point...and stop buying.

Sooner or later, the industry will need to reinvent itself, there's no way around it.

The problem with taking the risk is the backlash these new original (some small some big) games get for being...different.

The safety net for the nintendo and sony and ms are the obvious staples in their libraries but they too can get tiresome. Especially if they dont reinvent themselves. The amount of free passes given to high profile games simply because of the stature they uphold (or upheld at some point) this year was pretty high.

I am not saying reach or galaxy 2 or gow3 werent worth of the praise they got. It is that they are considered obvious targets while other lower profile games worked their way through the system with not so much as a good write up.

We all want something new and original yet we cant let go of our "safety" blankets in the form of GT5 and metroid. The saddest part of the risk factor is people having a predetermined notion that if it isnt from a big company then it isnt worth playing.

Wii and ps3 and 360 have plenty of smaller "indie if you will" games worth playing but they dont get the respect. Those are the ones really taking the risk because they are the ones who get lost in the shuffle of high profile titles.

Next year looks like it will have a slew of sequels of high profile games. Those are a given but my eye is on the smaller ones that want to go big.

I agree. Safety steps is keeping the gaming head afloat, but without risks the game industry will not grow.

The other hand is the consumer. If the consumer doesn't support the Alan Wakes, the LIMBOs, or Heavy Rains out there, cause they rather take the safe route with COD that satisfies an itch, then the industry will suffer as well.

More developers need to work on new experiences and the gamers need to support creativity.

I personally found it to be an iffy year. A large part of that being that not many of the big titles were in my personal tastes (See Heavy Rain, Halo, Mass Effect, GT5, etc).

And I must DISAGREE with what Sessler said about developers "finessing" formulas this year. Halo took a lot of side steps towards Call of Duty, Call of Duty took some steps backwards, etc. God of War 3, ME2, and GT5 made more natural evolutions than adaptive ones.

Sessler hit it right on the head. Ever since the worldwide economy went rocky 3 years or so ago all the entertainment mediums has gone with releasing safe products. It's been no secret that right after the dotcom bubble bust that the entertainment realm seemed to swell and balloon (amongst other things during that expansion period). I think what we've seen in the last few years has been just the effects of us a people becoming a little over zealous but I digress. Anywho I think it's been a real treat to get adventurous titles like Heavy Rain but like darth mentioned we'll see more titles via digital storefronts.

Sessler has always been pretty straight up for the most part. I have to agree with him this year was not the best I have seen. It had really great games, but lacked that "Oh SH!T" factor that we had in previous years. Like I said very good games just nothing really got me so excited I could not wait to get it. The games like Heavy Rain, Halo Reach, and God Of War were great don't get me wrong, but nothing to really hold my attention for long.